1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvements of a magazine for accommodating discs therein, and it particularly relates to a magazine comprising a stack of plural trays for holding discs, which magazine is inserted in an automatic disc player so that a desired disc in the magazine is automatically selected and played therein by causing the automatic disc player to separate vertically the magazine containing discs held by respective trays so that the desired disc held by a tray is exposed to allow an access of a disc play mechanism of the automatic disc player for playing the desired disc.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a disc (optical disc) such as a CD (Compact Disc), a CD-ROM (Read Only Memory), a CD-I (Interactive) or a VD (Video Disc) is popular among users and is widely used as recorded sound information, picture information, or character information because it is capable of storing a large amount of information by converting the information into a plurality of microscopic pits on the disc and of performing a quick random access by using an optical pick-up provided in a disc player.
There is such a disc player for automatically playing the above discs as employing a magazine for accommodating a plurality of discs therein of a prior art as shown in FIG. 1, wherein the magazine is mounted on a loading mechanism of the disc player and a desired disc is automatically played by causing the loading mechanism to select and drawn out the desired disc from the the magazine.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing the magazine for accommodating discs of a prior art.
Referring to FIG. 1, a numeral 500 designates the magazine for accommodating discs of the prior art (hereafter referred to as magazine 500) having a boxlike configuration in appearance, 500a an opening provided on the side of the magazine 500, 500b and 500b guide grooves provided at both inner side wall of the magazine 500, 501 plural trays each accommodating a disc 502 provided slidably along the guide grooves 500b and 500b being stacked with a predetermined spacing provided therebetween.
The magazine 500 is mounted in a magazine accommodating place 510b of an automatic disc player 510 by being inserted through an inlet 510a thereof in a direction as shown with an arrow FA. A tray 501 holding a desired disc 502 is drawn out and transferred to an upper position of a disc playing section 510c of the automatic disc player 510 from the magazine 500 by a tray drawing means (not shown). The selected disc 502 is mounted on a turntable 511 from the tray 501 by causing a tray transfer mechanism (not shown) to transfer the tray 501 downward. After that, the tray 501 is retracted in a downward position of the turntable 511 and the selected disc 502 is played by using an optical pickup 512 of the disc player 510.
In the magazine 500 of the prior art, however, the disc playing section 510c is provided in a position adjacent to the magazine accommodating place 510b in the disc player 510, i.e. a location of the disc playing section 510c is required to be remote enough to draw out the tray 501 from the magazine 500 completely, which requires approximately the same area as that of the magazine accommodating place 510b. Thus, it poses a problem of downsizing the disc player 510 because the employment of the magazine requires at least more than twice an occupied area of the magazine 500 even when the magazine would be designed small enough to accommodate the discs 502 therein.
Still more, it poses a problem that the magazine 500 degrades portability itself because of an increase of a height in overall dimensions due to such a structure of the magazine that plural trays each accommodating a disc 502 are provided slidably along the guide grooves 500b and 500b being stacked with a predetermined spacing provided therebetween for the slidability in the magazine 500 as mentioned in the foregoing.